DEVELOPER. WRITER. LOADING...

Menu

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Dear not-so-young reader, you recently left College. Makerere University. Kyambogo. KIU. The rest. Outside countries. The first week at home was exciting; you needed the rest. All those nights in club cut short to rush back to your dimly lit room to copy your friend’s assignment to be able to hand in early the next morning paid off; you are on the graduation list after all. It is week two and daddy has started dropping subtle hints.

You have watched every series that you managed to squeeze onto your hard disk before leaving campus, pausing only to ceremoniously throw away your notes. It is now time to dust off that ill-fitting suit you last wore to Aunt Matilda’s wedding all those years back. It is time to throw on the one skirt you have that got you quite a few compliments back then so it’s probably your safest bet.
A few practical job-hunting tips. Do not:

Use Facebook
I may be wrong on this but I don’t know anyone who got a job by updating their status update to ‘Yo niggz, I’m srchg 4 a jb. Hlp mi’. You may be the first. If you do get a job that way then please call me up and say “In your face!! Muhhahahaha” and hang up. My phone number is printed in the sports section, right next to the story about how a giraffe beat all naysayers and won the county back-to-school dash.

Use slang
If you do get past all the bad statistics and actually land a job interview, it would greatly help your chances if you cleaned up your English. “I was at that jwi of campu for four years reading those of mascom with my gangos.” My research on the latest slang all the cool kids are using these days wasn’t too fruitful so I pieced that together from watching Bobi Wine videos.

Get off topic
Many interviews start with the rather amorphous “Tell me/us about yourself” question. In as much as it is all too tempting to spew everything, including how your pet monkey likes his bananas pre-heated in a microwave or how you plan to spend your life hunting elephants for their tusks, do not do it. Stick to stuff in your CV.

Dear not-so-young reader, you recently left College. Makerere University, Kyambogo, KIU. The rest. Outside countries. All those nights spent carrying your notes to Club Silk to sneak a peek at them when the DJ would launch into a few minutes of lingala finally paid off. Kudos to you. It also helped that you followed your doctor’s advice and stayed away from Celine Dion’s music- that is how your brain cells kept their will to live.

You took it a step further and wrestled your way into a new job at a vibrant company. My word limit does not allow me to say all the congratulatory stuff five minutes of thinking would bring to mind. I’ll instead just go ahead and give you something more practical-tips on how to excel at your new job. It does not matter whether you are filing documents, writing for a newspaper or your work is to bite into the sandwiches ladies at work leave in the fridge, these tips will help. I hope. I have convinced my editor as much so work with me here. When you start your new job, do not:

Drink on the job
Skip this part if you manage a beer brand in a brewery; word has it that since the law suit in 1998 where Conrad Gaga Munroe took the (name removed by editor) beer to court for finding a goat’s hoof in it, brand managers at beer companies have to taste every single beer to make sure it is fit for consumption. I have it on very inebriated authority that it is in their job description. Taste every beer.

But you clearly are not a brand manager for a beer; not fresh out of college. So do not drink at work. Trying to deliver on a tight deadline while intoxicated is as effective as doing the moonwalk on tarmac, in gum boots, with lingala playing.

Get comfortable
For some reason, all talk as you progressed through school painted the working world as the promised land. You were promised that if you forewent all those house parties your friends had a grand time at, you’d get good grades, start work and live like Lil’ Wayne. Without the grills. Or the constant sneer. Or the sagging pants. Or the vests. Does that man own anything but vests?

Start work. But don’t get comfortable. Promised land or not. Be good at what you do and constantly put in time to get even better; that way we can send them to their makers by making it clap.